10 years after

‎10 years ago, The days that changed the course of our lives as much as July 16 1979 which is the day Saddam took power.Despite the fact that most Iraqis hated Saddam, the way that the war got conducted could never be worse. from choosing a pathetic not knowledgeable person like Paul Bremer to lead a country that he have no idea about (his book claimed he went and bought books about Iraq 14 days before his assignment to understand the country ) . To hiring incompetent and partisan aides then they allowed sectarian Iraqi politicians to enter the governance counsel. And after all that allowing elections way before security which ensured all the thugs and the religious idiots would get elected as a result of the war since intimidation and lack of trust of people they did not know made the religious win the votes.

All that may sound political, but to me its personal, those who lost their lives are human beings who did not have the opportunity to live, to see their family anymore, to continue to love and be loved. I was here during those days. I lost connection with my family on March 25th 2003, i did not know what happened to them till May 2003. 

Thats why while moving away from Iraq and living the US for now almost 12 years I hold dearly to me the same believe that I had when I was there. 
I understand that war seems ok for many people, but its not to me , if you wanna go to war you do it without attacking cities , you do it on the borders man to man, and fix issue by issue far away from civilians, if you gonna bomb cities you are a coward who care less about human lives no matter whats your reasoning is , religion or politics, at the end all those who casue civilian deaths and argue that it was necessary are pathetic to me.

Iraq execution spree under the spotlight

I usually do not post links from ALJazeera , and i think this is understandable as I usually do not agree with their approach or politics, but this is a decent article that show how far Iraq has deviated from the human rights laws we hoped that it has by now.

 

Source Aljazeera 

As Iraq’s political tension ratchets up following the death sentence imposed on its fugitive vice president, human rights groups have expressed fears the Shia-led government may be using state-sanctioned executions to eliminate opponents held in prison. 

Stories of torture are also coming from released prisoners and human rights investigators, which directly contradict the claims of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s government.

 

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2012/09/201291081633731250.html

Iraq Back to the future

Is Nouri al-Maliki becoming Iraq‘s next dictator and, if he is, does anyone in Washington care? The second half of the question is easy to answer. The Pentagon wanted to keep 8,000 troops in Iraq after withdrawal. But Maliki made it clear there would be no US troops after the agreement expired on 31 December 2011. The state department also planned for an embassy up to 16,000 strong, and a CIA station 700 strong, but the Iraqi strongman made short shrift of a sizeable US civilian presence, by insisting that his office take direct responsibility for approving every US diplomatic visa. Washington could use the soft power of military supply contracts, but is unwilling to do that. Maliki is allowing Iranian overflights to resupply Assad’s embattled regime in Syria. Washington still does not want to know.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/sep/10/iraq-nouri-al-maliki-edit…

 

Man whose WMD lies led to 100,000 deaths confesses all

I totally understand his reasoning , but the funny thing is that they are trying to make him the bad guy. as if they would of not gone to war if he did not provide  that intelligence (or here the lack of it)

 

Source: The Independent

A man whose lies helped to make the case for invading Iraq – starting a nine-year war costing more than 100,000 lives and hundreds of billions of pounds – will come clean in his first British television interview tomorrow.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/politics/man-whose-wmd-lies-led-to-100000-deaths-confesses-all-7606236.html

Women Rights Minister in Iraq do not believe in gender equality, My guess that was a job requirement

in an Arabic Interview with her she said that she get her Husband approval for everything becauseshe beleive she is less than him. Added to that she said that she visited some christian neighborhood  because she heard that the suicide rate in that area was high as if Muslim women in Iraq are living in luxury. I wonder what she was smoking during that interview,  maybe what her husband was smoking since have been doing all the thinking for her. 

Source: Niqas.com

New guidelines on how the Iraqi government’s female employees should dress have caused a furore. The conservative Ministry of Women’s affairs says it is protecting female dignity while women’s rights advocates say it’s an attack on personal freedoms.

 

The guidelines had already been decided on late last year but when a local newspaper published details of exactly how the Iraqi government’s female employees should be dressing, controversy was bound to ensue.

 

The recommendations made by the Higher National Committee for the Advancement of Iraqi Women*, which is chaired by the federal Minister for Women’s Affairs, Ibtihal al-Zaidi, had been decided upon in September 2011. However details were only revealed by the Baghdad daily, Al Mada, a few days ago.

http://www.niqash.org/articles/?id=2981

After 20 Years, An Iraqi Returns To A Changed Land

I can not add anything more to her beautiful words

Source NPR:

“I think the spirit of Baghdad will never change, no matter what. The Baghdad and Iraqi people will endure, but visually, I think the city’s just completely destroyed. It used to be a beautiful city, and I’m searching really hard to find its beauty.” Aseel Albanna

 

http://www.npr.org/2012/01/19/145397206/after-20-years-an-iraqi-returns-to-a-changed-land

Iraq Kew flora project revived after 25 years on hold

Some nice  news to read about Iraq 

 

Source: BBC

A project to catalogue every plant species in Iraq has been restarted, 25 years after it was put on hold because of the political situation in the country.

Experts from Iraq are once again working with botanists at Kew Gardens in London to finish the reference work Flora of Iraq, the first volume of which was published in 1966.

There are estimated to be around 3,500 plant species in the country but many are not comprehensively documented.

The project aims to complete the final three of nine planned volumes. The most recent was published in 1985.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-16317974